Analysis of the inhibitory effects of miR-124 and miR-152 on human epithelial ovarian cancer xenografts in a nude mouse model

This study investigated the inhibitory effects of miR-124 and miR-152 on the growth of human ovarian cancer (OC) SKOV3 cell line subcutaneous xenografts in nude mice. Twenty-eight healthy nude mice were selected and divided into the experimental group 1 (n=4), experimental group 2 (n=4), negative control group 1 (n=4), negative control group 2 (n=4), blank control group 1 (n=4), blank control group 2 (n=4) and observation group (n=4) according to the principle of similarity in body weight. The transfected SKOV3 cells were inoculated subcutaneously into the nape of the nude mice. After tumorigenesis, miR-124 mimics, miR-152 mimics, and their negative controls were transiently transfected into human OC SKOV3 cells via lipofection method. The expression levels of miR-124 and miR-152 were detected via reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR), and those of Ki-67 and caspase-3 were detected by western blotting. After transfection, the expression levels of miR-124 and miR-152 in the SKOV3 cells were significantly upregulated. The nude mice were sacrificed 36 days later, and tumor nodes of nude mice transfected with miR-124 and miR-152 grew slowly. Compared with that in the experimental groups, tumor size in the blank control and negative control groups was gradually increased with the increment of days (P<0.05). The volume of subcutaneous xenografts in nude mice of miR-124 and miR-152 experimental groups was obviously smaller than that in the blank control and negative control groups (P<0.05). Besides, the inhibition of tumor size in the observation group was more significant than that in the experimental groups (P<0.05). Thus, miR-124 and miR-152 inhibit the growth of human epithelial OC xenografts in nude mice, and they are expected to become new targets for gene-based therapy of OC.